What a busy place!

02-14-2017, 10:56 AM

Beautiful sunny day here in western NY. Looked out my window at the pasture and woods out back...it looked so peaceful! Decided to go for a hike. Quite deceiving! What a lot of activity has been going on out there!
The tracks in the snow tell a lot of stories. Some folks went to bed with their bellies full, for others it was not such a good day. I really enjoy seeing where an owl or hawk just swooped down and tried for a meal. Those wing marks in the snow always fascinate me.
Kicked up some deer, saw coyote tracks, turkey scratches...my bum leg will make me pay for that walk, but it was really worth it!

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This has been an unusual winter. We have had some very cold and lots of snow and then it warms up and everything melts.. January did not even seem like winter to me. They are calling for a foot or so of snow for us starting tonight. Snowmobilers have had feast or famine this year.
We are close to Lake Erie, so altitude is everything. We are about 1600 feet. It is not unusual for me to get 2 feet or more of snow and a mile down the road a few inches. Get down by the lake and there is almost nothing on the ground. We say that if we can get a mile away from home, we can go anywhere!
I know that for you folks up in Canada, who so graciously share your winds with us, this is practically tropical!

Jim

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I'm in the west slope of the Rockies, west of Jasper National Park. We like to say that the mountains shut the back door to the inland cold.
Didn't work at all this winter. Brutal cold (20 below) from Christmas until last week. Now, we're looking at a month of melting and South wind.
Not much snowmobile action either. The weather left several really weak layers in the snowpack for an extreme avalanche hazard.
Just how warm it is up top, I don't know but from my house, I see no sled tracks at all. Two very popular peaks just a couple miles west across the valley.

Tracks around my house in the village = a bunch of Ravens, the local group of 4 or 5 mule deer and last month, one really big wing-plant, right in the middle of my back yard snow.
Some mouse or vole under the snow paid for it.